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Morgan tackles stars for BBC1

Morgan: 'crazy' the media industry did not have a better trade magazine

Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan is to confront six "tabloid icons", including Victoria Beckham and Peter Mandelson, about their treatment at the hands of the press in a BBC1 series.

Tabloid Tales, which will begin next month, comprises six 40-minute celebrity interviews.

Heather Mills, Anthea Turner, Paul Burrell and Jade Goody are the other stars of the series which, according to Morgan, is "pretty confrontational" at times.

In contrast to recent documentaries about tabloid newspapers, the celebrities concerned are given the opportunity to give their side of the story, while Morgan's day job equips him to defend the way in which newspapers operate.

"We take one tabloid icon for each programme and we go through their life in the tabloid headlines. We have ding-dongs about stuff they say is rubbish and I take them to task," explained Morgan, adding that the interviews become "heated and emotional".

"The reason I did it was because I got so fed up with all those programmes with endless freelance journalists giving their view on how it all works. There's a very clich&eacuted way in which TV treats tabloid newspapers," he said.

"It is a direct confrontation between the subject matter and the perpetrator. I take the rap for a lot of the media and I've admitted when I think the media have gone too far."

"The stories are malicious, ill-informed and spot-on. This documentary is about taking the sea of publicity and analysing its effect."

The interviews will be interspersed with comment from former Fleet Street editors and well known media pundits.

These include ex-Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, former Independent and Daily Express editor Rosie Boycott, ex-People editor and current News of the World deputy Neil Wallis and celebrity photographer Jason Fraser.

According to Morgan, the interviewees fall into three categories. Peter Mandelson and Anthea Turner were both "torn to pieces by the British media", causing Turner to become tearful at times during the documentary.

Mills and Burrell were treated as saints until the tabloids suddenly turned on them - in Mills' case when she married Sir Paul McCartney and in Burrell's when he sold his story to Morgan's newspaper.

In contrast, Morgan said Goody and Beckham were "refreshingly honest" and, in the former Spice Girl's case, very accepting of the "fame deal".

Tabloid Tales has been made for BBC1 by Brighter Pictures and produced by Gloria Wood, who has worked on World in Action and the ITN news.

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